Succinct Summation Of Week's Events (April 26, 2013)

Succinct Summations week ending April 26, 2013.

Positives:

1) With ~70% of S&P500 companies reporting, Q1 earnings are beating expectations (Q4=68.6%). Earnings have risen 3.5% year over year. (Ex financials +1.6%).
2) Despite some slowing economic data here and overseas, the Dow S&P and Nasdaq will all close up for the week.
3) High yield spreads have dropped to their lowest levels in 2 years, signaling a healthy appetite for risk.
4) Weekly jobless claims fell 16,000 to 339,000 — the lowest reading in 6 weeks.
5) New home sales rise 1.5% v expectations of 1.2% sending the homebuilder stock index to a new closing 52 week high
6) Q1 personal consumption expenditure gained 3.2% improving at the best pace since 2010.
7) Q1 U.K. GDP grew 0.3% v expectations of 0.1%.
8) Italy (finally) gets new PM, Enrico Letta sending Italian 10-year yields to their lowest levels since 2010.
9) France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Greece all had strong weeks after underperforming U.S. indices all year.
10)UK economy skirts a triple dip in Q1 with a .3% q/o/q gain, better than est of up .1% and follows a contraction in Q4.

Negatives:

1) AP’s twitter account was hacked causing another flash crash — individuals are still reticent to trust the integrity of markets.
2) Q1 GDP comes in at +2.5% v expectations of +3.0%.
Corporate Revenue growth is flat, up 0.1% year over year with only 36% beating rev estimates and 44% missing.
3) U.S. based stock funds reported $7.3B in weekly outflows, the most since July 2012 (could be a contrarian buy signal).
4) March durable goods fall by -5.7% v expectations of -2.9%.( Core capex rose 0.2% v expectations of 0.3%).
5) Of the 855 companies (any index) that have reported earnings, only 59% have beaten EPS (lowest reading since this current bull market began).
6) U.S. existing home sales came in at -0.6% v expectations of +0.4%.
7) Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan index of consumer sentiment declined to 76.4 from 78.6 a month earlier — the lowest reading in 3 months.
8) Chinese flash PMI came in at 50.5 v expectations of 51.5 (above 50 indicates expansion but this was not an insignificant miss)
9) German flash PMI came in at 48.8 from 50.6 in March (below 50 signals contraction). French PMI comes in at a dismal 44.4, up from 40 in March.
10) Spanish unemployment in Q1 rises to 27.2% from 26% in prior q.